"So it is. Is the captain's signature worth so little? Tell me why."
He could not, or would not.
I made him wait while I wrote a petition to the police. The burden of it was: "Why? I was born an American and curious; not too curious, but just curious enough to be interested in the ethnographical and psychological problems of foreign lands. Why the twenty-five kopeks? It is plainly too little or too much. Why?"
The messenger accepted the five kopeks for the stamp, and set out to deliver the document. But he returned after a moment, and said that he would intrust the five kopeks to my safe-keeping until he brought the answer to my document,-which he had had just sufficient time to read, by the way. That was the last I ever heard of him or of it, and I was forced to conclude that some thirsty soul had been in quest of "tea-money" for vodka. I am still in debt to the Russian government for five kopeks.
The last time I arrived in Petersburg, I tried a new plan. Instead of making a trip of a couple of miles to get the signature of our police captain, or sending the petition at the languid convenience of the overworked dvornik, I went to the general post-office, which was close by, and made a personal request that my mail matter be delivered at my new address. The proper official, whom I found after a search through most of the building, during which I observed their methods, declared that my request was illegal, and ordered me to go for the customary signature. But by this time I had learned that the mere threat to make Russian officials inspect my passport was productive of much the same effect as drawing a pistol on them would have had. It was not in the least necessary to have the document with me; going through the motions was easier, and quite as good. Every man of them flushed up, and repelled the suggestion as a sort of personal insult; but they invariably came to terms on the spot. Accordingly, I tried it here.
This particular man, when I pretended to draw my "open sesame" spell from my pocket, instantly dropped his official air, asked me to write my name, with quite a human, friendly manner, and then remarked, with a very every-day laugh, "That is sufficient. I have seen so much of it on your previous petitions that I can swear to it myself much better than the police captain could."
As an offset to my anecdotes about our being lost through inability to riddle out our name on the part of the police, I must relate an instance where the post-office displayed remarkable powers of divination. One day I received an official notification from the post-office that there was a misdirected parcel for me from Moscow, lying in the proper office,-would I please to call for it? I called. The address on the parcel was "Madame Argot," I was informed, but I must get myself certified to before I could receive it.
"But how am I to do that? I am not Madame Argot. Are you sure the parcel is for me?"
"Perfectly. It's your affair to get the certificate."
I went to the police station, one which I had not visited before, and stated the case.
"Go home and send the dvornik, as is proper," replied the captain loftily.
I argued the matter, after my usual fashion, and at last he affixed his signature to my document, with the encouraging remark: "Well, even with this you won't get that parcel, because the name is not yours."
"Trust me for that," I retorted. "As they are clever enough to know that it is for me, they will be clever enough to give it to me, or I will persuade them that they are."
Back I went to the post-office. I had never been in that department previously, I may mention. Then I was shown a box, and asked if I expected it, and from whom it came. I asserted utter ignorance; but, as I took it in my hand, I heard a rattling, and it suddenly flashed across my mind that it might be the proofs of some photographs which the Moscow artist had "hurried" through in one month. The amiable post-office "blindman," who had riddled out the address, was quite willing to give me the parcel without further ado, but I said:-
"Open it, and you will soon see whether it really belongs to me."
After much protestation he did so, and then we exchanged lavish compliments,-he on the capital likenesses and the skill of the artist; I on the stupidity of the man who could evolve Argot out of my legibly engraved visiting-card, and on the cleverness of the man who could translate that name back into its original form.
The most prominent instance of minute thoughtfulness and care on the part of the post-office officials which came under my notice occurred in the depths of the country. I sent a letter with a ten-kopek stamp on it to the post town, twelve versts distant. Foreign postage had been raised from seven to ten kopeks, and stamps, in a new design, of the latter denomination (hitherto non-existent) had been in use for about four months. The country postmaster, who had seen nothing but the old issues, carefully removed my stamp and sent it back to me, replacing it with a seven-kopek stamp and a three-kopek stamp. I felt, for a moment, as though I had been both highly complimented and gently rebuked for my remarkable skill in counterfeiting!
As a parallel case, I may add that there were plenty of intelligent people in New York city and elsewhere who were not aware that the United States still issued three-cent stamps, or who could tell the color of them, until the Columbian set appeared to attract their attention.
II. THE NEVSKY PROSPEKT
The Nevsky Prospekt!
From the time when, as children, we first encounter the words, in geographical compilations disguised as books of travel, what visions do they not summon up! Visions of the realm of the Frost King and of his Regent, the White Tzar, as fantastic as any of those narrated of tropic climes by Scheherezade, and with which we are far more familiar than we are with the history of our native land.
When we attain to the reality of our visions, in point of locality at least, we find a definite starting-point ready to our hand, where veracious legend and more veracious history are satisfactorily blended. It is at the eastern extremity of the famous broad avenue,-which is the meaning of Prospekt. Here, on the bank of the Neva, tradition alleges that Alexander, Prince of Novgorod, won his great battle-and, incidentally, his surname of Nevsky and his post of patron saint of Russia -over the united forces of the Swedes and oppressive Knights of the Teutonic Order, in the year 1240.
Nearly five hundred years later, the spot was occupied by Rhitiowa, one of the forty Finnish villages scattered over the present site of St. Petersburg, as designated by the maps of the Swedes, whom Peter the Great-practically Russia's second patron saint-expelled anew when he captured their thriving commercial town, on the shore of the Neva, directly opposite, now known as Malaya Okhta, possessed of extensive foreign trade, and of a church older than the capital, which recently celebrated its two-hundredth anniversary.
It was in 1710 that Peter I. named the place "Victory," in honor of Prince-Saint Alexander Nevsky's conquest, and commanded the erection of a Lavra, or first-class monastery, the seat of a Metropolitan and of a theological seminary. By 1716 the monastery was completed, in wood, as engravings of that day show us, but in a very different form from the complex of stone buildings of the present day. Its principal façade, with extensive, stiffly arranged gardens, faced upon the river,-the only means of communication in that town, planted on a bog, threaded with marshy streams, being by boat. In fact, for a long time horses were so scarce in the infant capital, where reindeer were used in sledges even as late as the end of the last century, that no one was permitted to come to Court, during Peter the Great's reign, otherwise than by water. Necessity and the enforced cultivation of aquatic habits in his inland subjects, which the enterprising Emperor had so much at heart, combined to counsel this regulation.
The bones of Prince Alexander were brought to St. Petersburg, from their resting-place in the Vladimir Government, in 1724, Peter the Great occupying his favorite post as pilot and steersman in the saint's state barge, and they now repose in the monastery cathedral, under a canopy, and in a tomb of silver, 3600 pounds in weight, given by Peter's daughter, the devout Empress Elizabeth. In the cemetery surrounding the cathedral, under the fragrant firs and birches, with the
blue Neva rippling far below, lie many of the men who have contributed to the advancement of their country in literature, art, and science, during the last two centuries.
Of all the historical memories connected with this monastery none is more curious than that relating to the second funeral of Peter III. He had been buried by his wife, in 1762, with much simplicity, in one of the many churches of the Lavra, which contains the family tombs and monuments not only of members of the imperial family, but of the noble families most illustrious in the eighteenth century. When Paul I. came to the throne, in 1796, his first care was to give his long-deceased father a more fitting burial. The body was exhumed. Surrounded by his court, Pavel Petrovitch took the imperial crown from the altar, placed it on his own head, then laid it reverently on his father's coffin. When Peter III. was transferred immediately afterward, with magnificent ceremonial, to the Winter Palace, there to lie in state by the side of his wife, Katherine II., and to accompany her to his proper resting-place among the sovereigns of Russia, in the cathedral of the Peter-Paul fortress, Count Alexei Grigorevitch Orloff was appointed, with fine irony, to carry the crown before his former master, whom he had betrayed, and in the necessity for whose first funeral he had played the part of Fate. It was with considerable difficulty that he was hunted up, while Emperor and pageant waited, in the obscure corner where he was sobbing and weeping; and with still greater difficulty was he finally persuaded to perform the task assigned to him in the procession.
Outside the vast monastery, which, like most Russian monasteries, resembles a fortress, though, unlike most of them, it has never served as such, the scene is almost rural. Pigeons, those symbols of the Holy Ghost, inviolable in Russia, attack with impunity the grain bags in the acres of storehouses opposite, pick holes, and eat their fill undisturbed.
From this spot to the slight curve in the Prospekt, at the Znamenskaya Square, a distance of about a mile, where the Moscow railway station is situated, and where the train of steam tram-cars is superseded by less terrifying horse-cars, the whole aspect of the avenue is that of a provincial town, in the character of the people and the buildings, even to the favorite crushed strawberry and azure washes, and green iron roofs on the countrified shops. Here and there, not very far away, a log-house may even be espied.
During the next three quarters of a mile the houses and shops are more city-like, and, being newer than those beyond, are more ornamented as to the stucco of their windows and doors. Here, as elsewhere in this stoneless land, with rare exceptions, the buildings are of brick or rubble, stuccoed and washed, generally in light yellow, with walls three feet or more apart, warmly filled in, and ventilated through the hermetically sealed windows by ample panes in the centre of the sashes, or by apertures in the string-courses between stories, which open into each room. Shops below, apartments above, this is the nearly invariable rule.
It is only when we reach the Anitchkoff Bridge, with its graceful railing of sea-horses, adorned with four colossal bronze groups of horse-tamers, from the hand of the Russian sculptor, Baron Klodt, that the really characteristic part of the Nevsky begins.
It is difficult to believe that fifty years ago this spot was the end of the Petersburg world. But at that epoch the Nevsky was decorated with rows of fine large trees, which have now disappeared to the last twig. The Fontanka River, or canal, over which we stand, offers the best of the many illustrations of the manner in which Peter the Great, with his ardent love of water and Dutch ways, and his worthy successors have turned natural disadvantages into advantages and objects of beauty. The Fontanka was the largest of the numerous marshy rivers in that Arctic bog selected by Peter I. for his new capital, which have been deepened, widened, faced with cut granite walls, and utilized as means of cheap communication between distant parts of the city, and as relief channels for the inundating waves of the Gulf of Finland, which rise, more or less, every year, from August to November, at the behest of the southwest gale. That this last precaution is not superfluous is shown by the iron flood-mark set into the wall of the Anitchkoff Palace, on the southern shore of the Fontanka, as on so many other public buildings in the city, with "1824" appended,-the date of one celebrated and disastrous inundation which attained in some places the height of thirteen feet and seven inches. This particular river derived its name from the fact that it was trained to carry water and feed the fountains in Peter the Great's favorite Summer Garden, of which only one now remains.
At the close of the last century, and even later, persons out of favor at Court, or nobles who had committed misdemeanors, were banished to the southern shores of the Fontanka, as to a foreign land. Among the amusements at the datchas,-the wooden country houses,-in the wilder recesses of the vast parks which studded both shores, the chase after wild animals, and from bandits, played a prominent part.
The stretch which we have traversed on our way from the monastery, and which is punctuated at the corner of the canal and the Prospekt by the pleasing brick and granite palace of the Emperor's brother, Grand Duke Sergiei Alexandrovitch, which formerly belonged to Prince Byeloselsky-Byelozersky, was the suburb belonging to Lieutenant-Colonel Anitchkoff, who built the first bridge, of wood, in 1715. As late as the reign of Alexander I., all persons entering the town were required to inscribe their names in the register kept at the barrier placed at this bridge. Some roguish fellows having conspired to cast ridicule on this custom, by writing absurd names, the guards were instructed to make an example of the next jester whose name should strike them as suspicious. Fate willed that the imperial comptroller, Baltazar Baltazarovitch Kampenhausen, with his Russianized German name, should fall a victim to this order, and he was detained until his fantastic cognomen, so harsh to Slavic ears, could be investigated.
By day or by night, in winter or summer, it is a pure delight to stand on the Anitchkoff Bridge and survey the scene on either hand. If we gaze to the north toward what is one of the oldest parts settled on the rivulet-riddled so-called "mainland," in this Northern Venice, we see the long, plain façade of the Katherine Institute for the education of the daughters of officers, originally built by Peter the Great for his daughter Anna, as the "Italian Palace," but used only for the palace servants, until it was built over and converted to its present purpose. Beyond, we catch a glimpse of the yellow wings of Count Scheremetieff's ancient house and its great iron railing, behind which, in a spacious courtyard, after the Moscow fashion so rare in thrifty Petersburg, the main building lies invisible to us. If we look to the south, we find the long ochre mass of the Anitchkoff Palace, facing on the Nevsky, upon the right shore; on the left, beyond the palace of Sergiei Alexandrovitch, the branch of the Alexander Nevsky Monastery, in old Russian style, with highly colored saints and heads of seraphim on the outer walls; and a perspective of light, stuccoed building,-dwellings, markets, churches,-until the eye halts with pleasure on the distant blue dome of the Troitzky cathedral, studded with golden stars. Indeed, it is difficult to discover a vista in St. Petersburg which does not charm us with a glimpse of one or more of these cross-crowned domes, floating, bubble-like, in the pale azure of the sky. Though they are far from being as beautiful in form or coloring as those of Moscow, they satisfy us at the moment.
If it is on a winter night that we take up our stand here, we may catch a distant glimpse of the numerous "skating-gardens," laid out upon the ice cleared on the snowy surface of the canal. The ice-hills will be black with forms flitting swiftly down the shining roads on sledges or skates, illuminated by the electric light; a band will be braying blithely, regardless of the piercing cold, and the skaters will dance on, in their fancy-dress ball or prize races, or otherwise, clad so thinly as to amaze the shivering foreigner as he hugs his furs.
By day the teamsters stand upon the quay, with rough aprons over their ballet-skirted sheepskin coats, waiting for a job. If we hire one of them, we shall find that they all belong to the ancient Russian Artel, or Labor Union, which prevents competition beyond a certain point. When the price has
been fixed, after due and inevitable chaffering, one lomovoi grasps his shapeless cap by its worn edge of fur, bites a kopek, and drops it in. Each of the other men contributes a marked copper likewise, and we are invited to draw lots, in full view, to determine which of them shall have the job. The master of the Artel sees to it that there is fair play on both sides. If an unruly member presumes to intervene with a lower bid, with the object of monopolizing the job out of turn, he is promptly squelched, and, though his bid may be allowed to stand, the man whose kopek we have drawn must do the work. The winner chee-ee-eeps to his little horse, whose shaggy mane has been tangled by the loving hand of the domovoi (house-sprite) and hangs to his knees. The patient beast, which, like all Russian horses, is never covered, no matter how severe the weather may be, or how hot he may be from exercise, rouses himself from his real or simulated slumber, and takes up the burden of life again, handicapped by the huge wooden arch, gayly painted in flowers and initials, which joins his shafts, and does stout service despite his sorry aspect.
But the early summer is the season when the Fontanka is to be seen in its most characteristic state. The brilliant blue water sparkles under the hot sun, or adds one more tint to the exquisite hues which make of the sky one vast, gleaming fire-opal on those marvelous "white nights" when darkness never descends to a depth beyond the point where it leaves all objects with natural forms and colors, and only spiritualizes them with the gentle vagueness of a translucent veil. Small steamers, manned by wooden-faced, blond Finns, connect the unfashionable suburban quarters, lying near the canal's entrance into the Neva on the west, with the fashionable Court quarter on the northern quays at its other entrance into the Neva, seven versts away. They dart about like sea-gulls, picking their path, not unfraught with serious danger, among the obstructions. The obstructions are many: washing-house boats (it is a good old unexploded theory in Petersburg that clothes are clean only when rinsed in running water, even though our eyes and noses inform us, unaided by chart, where the drainage goes); little flotillas of dingy flat-boats, anchored around the "Fish-Gardens," and containing the latter's stock in trade, where persons of taste pick their second dinner-course out of the flopping inmates of a temporary scoop-net; huge, unwieldy, wood barks, put together with wooden pegs, and steered with long, clumsy rudders, which the poor peasants have painfully poled-tramp, tramp, tramp, along the sides-through four hundred miles of tortuous waterways from that province of the former haughty republic, "Lord Novgorod the Great," where Prince Rurik ruled and laid the foundations of the present imperial empire, and whence came Prince-Saint Alexander, to win his surname of Nevsky, as we have seen, at the spot where his monastery stands, a couple of miles, at most, away.
Russian Rambles Page 3